Help

Registering lets you take full advantage of the community, enabling you to:

Post new messages and reply to other members' posts

Receive email when someone responds to a specific post or topic

Exchange private messages with other members

Personalize your community experience

Post comments on blogs that don't allow anonymous comments

Post ideas, vote on the ideas you like best, and post comments

If you don't register, you can only browse, search for information, and read posts. You won't be able to give kudos, vote on ideas, interact with other community members, or set customization preferences.

Tip: Most people create anonymous names for the sake of privacy and to help them feel more comfortable participating. Be creative, have fun with it, but choose carefully: you can't change your login after you're registered.

Enter a Password.

Tip: Passwords are case-sensitive. Include upper and lower case letters and numbers to make your password more secure.

Enter your password again.

Enter a valid email address.

You'll be asked to confirm your email before you sign in.

Enter your email address again.

If you're the only one who uses this computer, click Remember me on this computer to be automatically signed in when you come to the community.

If you want, enter your first and last name.

Select a time zone that matches your location.

Click Register.

Check you email for a confirmation e-mail and click the activation link.

Note: You must have cookies enabled in your browser to register and to sign in the community.

You can tell other community members as much or as little about yourself as you want.
You can enter a short biography, your location, your interests, or anything else (within community guidelines, of course).

To tell other community members about yourself:

Sign in to your community account.

Go to My Settings > Personal Profile > Personal Information.

Enter information about yourself in the Biography field. You can also enter your name, location, company info, and any other information you want to share.

Your profile card displays information about yourself and your community achievements.
You can include your avatar, kudos count, community rank, post count, and latest post. You can also create badges for Blogger and Wordpress.

To create a profile card:

Sign in to your community account.

Go to My Settings > Personal > Profile Cards.

Click Display your profile card on your posts.

Choose one of the themes provided or, if you can upload images without moderator approval, click Browse to choose a background image.

Click the items you want to display on your card.
The Preview shows you what your card will look like.

Click Save.

To create a Blogger card:

Sign in to your community account.

Go to My Settings > Personal > Profile Cards > Blogger Profile Card.

Choose one of the themes provided or, if you can upload images without moderator approval, click Browse to choose a background image.

Click the items you want to display on your badge.
The Preview shows you what your badge will look like.

Click Upload to Blogger.

Follow Blogger's instructions for incorporating the card.

To create a Wordpress or web site card:

Sign in to your community account.

Go to My Settings > Personal > Profile Cards.

Click Wordpress Profile Card or Website Profile Card.

Choose one of the themes provided or, if you can upload images without moderator approval, click Browse to choose a background image.

Click the items you want to display on your card.
The Preview shows you what your card will look like.

Copy the URL (for Wordpress) or code (for website) at the bottom of the page and paste it on your Wordpress or web site page.

Your Friends List is a way to create your own community within a community.

Depending on your privacy settings, the people on your Friends List can see your biography, other personal information, or online status.
If you send private messages, you can choose friends from a list instead of typing their user names.

Note: Your Friends List is available only if your community supports private messages.

To add people to your Friends List:

Sign in to the community.

Click the user name of a friend to see the friend's About user name page.

Click Add user name to Friends.

Note: You can remove a person from your Friend's List by clicking "Remove from Friends". Additionally, you can click "Ignore" to prevent specific users from contacting you.

Communities provide a place for members or participants to search for information, read and post about topics of interest, and learn from each other. Depending on how the community is set up, you'll find:

boards where you can post questions and answers

blogs where you can read and comment on articles

idea exchanges where you can suggest ways to improve products and vote for ideas that other community members have posted

and more...

Guests (unregistered visitors) can browse or search the community for information.
Members (registered users) can post messages or comments, track discussions, and get email notifications on posting activity and other community actions.

You are essential to the community, even if all you ever do is read messages or articles that someone else has posted.
Communities offer all kinds of contributions: posting questions and sharing answers, leaving comments on blog articles or ideas,
voting for ideas you like, or just searching for answers to your questions.

We encourage you to visit often and participate. Ask your toughest questions.
Chances are someone has a solution or can point you in the right direction. If you find a solution that works,
let others know and pass on your own tips and insights. You might just have the answer someone else needs.

Remember to thank community members who have helped you. Show your appreciation by giving kudos to helpful posts,
accepting a solution that answers your question, or posting thank-you replies.

We want the community to be appropriate, friendly, informative, and fun for everyone.

Be sure to read the Community Terms of Service and the community's Rules and Guidelines so that you know what to expect and what is expected of you when you're here.

The Klout Score measures your overall online influence on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the most influential. Klout's system analyzes multiple social networks based on your engagement. The more that others engage with your content, the higher your score will be.

What does my Community Score mean?

The Community Score measures your influence on a scale of 1 to 100 specific to this community. It's calculated, in part, by how much other community members engage with your content. A high Community Score means you're consistently creating engaging, relevant, and helpful content for the community.

How often do my Klout and Community Scores update?

The Klout and Community Scores are evaluated daily.

What is the average Klout Score?

The average Klout Score is 40. Users with a score of 63 are in the top 5 percent of all users.

Why did my Klout Score drop?

There are over 400 variables that go into the Klout Score. While you might see an increase in certain factors such as retweets, likes, or people in your network, there might be other factors that are off-setting this gain. For example, engagement on your Facebook might be changing at the same time resulting in a net decrease in score. Your score is based on of rolling 90-day window, and as we start measuring new data, data older than 90 days drops off of your score. Be sure to check out your score history graphs daily for changes.

Note: It's normal to experience score fluctuations when adding and removing networks. Your score should be back to normal after a few days of doing so.

To search the Community, enter your search in the search field and click Search.
A page of search results is displayed. Browse the search results in the same manner you would a message board.

To perform a more in-depth search, click the Advanced link next to the Search button.
Here, you can limit your query to a specific board, specific parts of the message (subject vs. body), and other advanced parameters.

You can refine your search using one or more filters (location, author, date).

Want to limit your search results to accepted solutions? Click the Solved check box under the Metadata filter.
Want only the most recent results? Use one for the date filters to see results for a day or a week ago. You can also filter your results by individual authors or members who have the same rank.

Most search filters work together to narrow the possible results. For example, you can search for accepted solutions in the last month. However, the filters for the type of post work a little differently. If you choose Forums and Blogs, you see results from either forums or blogs (not results that are both forum and blog posts).

Active filters appear at the top of the results list. To turn off a filter, click the X to the right of the filter.

You can search for posts and knowledge base articles at any level of the community.
When you type a search term, the system automatically searches at the current level.
For example, if you're on the community front page, the system searches the entire community. If you're looking at a forum or blog page, the
system searches that forum (and the associated knowledge base, if any) or blog.

Tip: Searches for posts always include relevant knowledge bases. However, you can also search just in knowledge bases.

To search for posts:

Choose the scope of the search in the drop-down list to the left of the Search button.
You can search at the current level and above in the community.

Start typing the search term.
Auto-suggest shows the topics that match the term you're typing.
Tip: You can enter the full search term, or use an asterisk as a wildcard in your search.

If you don't see the term you're looking for in the auto-suggest list, click Search to see the full search results.

When you get your search results, use the filters on the left side of the page to refine your results.

You can search for community members by name or by rank. The name you search for must be at least three characters long.

To search for users:

Click Users in the drop-down list to the left of the Search button.

Start typing the name of an individual user or the name of a rank.
Auto-suggest shows the names of users who match the name you're typing. When you enter a rank, auto-suggest
lists all users who have that rank.
Tip: You can enter the full user or rank name, or use an asterisk as a wildcard in your search.

If you don't see the user you're looking for in the auto-suggest list, click Search to see the full search results.

Subscriptions let you get email updates whenever new content appears in an area of the community that you're interested in.
You can subscribe to a board, a blog article, an idea exchange, or any other location in the community.
You can also subscribe to a specific post.

To subscribe a piece of content:

Go to the item you want to subscribe to.

To subscribe to a location, click (Location) Options > Subscribe.
To subscribe to a specific post, go to the post and click (Post) Options > Subscribe

To view and manage your subscriptions:

Go to My Settings > Subscriptions & Notifications.

Click My Subscriptions to see a list of the items you've subscribed to.
You can click a subscription to go to the item.

To delete a subscription, click the check box for the subscription and click Email Subscription Options > Delete Selected Subscriptions.

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It is a way for you to get the latest content from this community, along with many other sites that you visit, all in one place. With an RSS feed reader, you subscribe to web sites, and those sites feed you new content so you can stay up to date.

To use RSS, you need a feed reader, such as Google Reader, MyYahoo, or the Live Bookmarks feature of Firefox. There are many free options. After you have your feed reader set up, you can find RSS feeds in the community by going to a board, blog, thread, or message and selecting Subscribe to RSS Feed from the options menu. There you will see a preview of the feed. Most RSS readers give you a button to click at this point. After you click it, the RSS feed appears in your reader as well as new content from that section of the community whenever it becomes available

A blog is an online journal written by one or more authors.
Blog articles usually appear in reverse-chronological order,
so you see the most recent article first, followed by earlier articles.
Some blogs have comments from readers, which you can read by clicking the Comments link at the bottom of the article.

Yes, however, you must provide your name (which we'll show) and your email address (which we won't).
You might also be able to enter a web site URL to display with your comment. Then, simply type your comment and click Post Your Comment.

To share blog articles with friend, you can use any shared bookmarking, social network, or other tracking service, such as Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, MySpace, Google, StumbleUpon, Technorati, or Twitter. However, you must have a valid account with the service.

To share a blog article:

Go to the article you want to share.

Click Bookmark.

Click the service you want to use.
The next steps depend on the service.

Yes. You can subscribe directly to a blog or an article, or you can subscribe to their RSS feeds.
If you subscribe to an RSS feed, you can use an RSS reader to view new content that's added to the blog.
If you subscribe directly to a blog or article, you receive an email alert when new articles or comments are posted.

To

Do this

Subscribe to a blog

Go to the blog page and click Blog Options > Subscribe.

Subscribe to an article

Go to the article and click Article Options > Subscribe.

Subscribe to an RSS feed

Go to the blog or article and click Blog Options > Subscribe to RSS Feed.
Then, save the live bookmark or whatever you usually do to add an RSS feed.

A permalink, short for permanent link, is the URL for a specific blog article. In an active blog with lots of entries, a particular article stays on the blog's front page for a short period of time. It becomes hard to bookmark a specific blog article or to email a link when the article you want is replaced with something new.

This is where permalinks come in handy. They take you directly to an article, rather than to the blog's front page, which typically shows only the last few articles.

An image gallery is a collection of images that you or other community members have uploaded.
Each community member who has permission to upload images has an image gallery.
You can view your own image gallery as well as the image galleries of other community members.
When you look at another user's gallery, you see the approved images that the user has chosen to share

To view your image gallery:

Go to your profile page.
A preview of your image gallery appears on the right.

Click View Image Gallery.

To view another user's image gallery:

Click the community member's user name to go to that user's profile page.
A preview of that user's shared images appears on the right.

Starting from your image gallery, you choose the image and name it.
There are size limitations, of course, and a community moderator must approve your image before it appears in your gallery or you can insert it in a post

To upload an image to your image gallery:

Go to your profile page.

Click View Image Gallery.

Click Browse and select an image file to be uploaded.
A preview of the image.

Type a title for the image.

Click Hide in Gallery (Private) to make this image private.
Private images never appear when other community members view your image gallery. They only appear if you insert the image in a post.

For your protection, your community requires a moderator to approve all uploaded images before they can be displayed.
Although you can see your uploaded images that are awaiting approval or flagged for review, other community members who view your images can only see the ones that have been approved.

A private image is one that only you can see. Each time you upload an image, you can decide whether you want that image to appear in your image gallery.
If you choose no, the image is private. Remember, a moderator must approve all uploaded images before your can use them in a post or display them in your gallery.

To change the privacy setting for an image:

In your gallery page, click the check box below the image you want to change.

There are now two versions of the image upload feature that communities can use. The choice is made by the community
manager and applies to the entire community.

In communities that use Images (Version 2) you can organize uploaded images into albums and images become more like posts:
you can give kudos to images you like and comment on images in your own albums and those of other community members.

Here's what's new in Images (Version 2):

You can organize your images in albums. You start with default public and private albums that contain any images you might already have uploaded.

When you upload an image you can place it in an existing album or create a new one.

You change the privacy setting for images by moving them between private and public albums.

When you view the images in an album you can use a new carousel control near the top of the page to scroll through the images.

You can add a description and tags to an image and choose the one you want to use as the album cover.

You can view all photos and graphic files you upload to the community on your Albums and Images page. This page displays images in two ways:

The Albums tab displays all of your image albums, including the default Public and Private albums that contain any images you might have already uploaded. You can create new albums when you upload images and move images between albums as needed.

The All Images tab displays all of the images you have uploaded

To view your images:

Go to your profile page.
A preview of your uploaded images appears on the right.

Click View My Images.

To view all the images in an album, click the album. Click an image to see more about it.
To view all of your images, click All Images.

To view another user's public images:

Click the community member's user name to go to that user's profile page.
A preview of that user's shared images appears on the right.

Depending on your starting point, you choose one or more images, choose the album where they'll be located, and upload.
There are size limitations, of course, and a community moderator must approve your images before others can see them. You can upload images from:

You can change the name, add a description, and apply tags to an image, but you can't edit the actual image in the community.
If you want to edit the image, you need to do that outside the community and upload the edited image.

To edit information about an image:

Go to your Albums and Images page.

Open the album that contains the image you want and click it.

Click Edit to change the image title, add a description, and enter tags.

To display an image on the front of the album, click Use this image for the album cover.

A private image is one that only you (and community moderators with permission) can see.
When you upload an image, you can place it in a private album or public album. Moderators must approve all uploaded images before you can use them in a post or display them in your My Images list.

To change the privacy setting for an image:

Click the image to go to the image page.

Click Image Options > Move Image.

Choose an album and click Move. To make an image private, move it to a private album. To make a private image public, move it to a public album.

You use image albums to organize the photos and other graphics that you've uploaded to the community.
By default, you start with two albums: Private and Public. Your community manager determines the number of albums you can create.

To edit an image album:

Go to your Albums and Images page.

Choose an album.

Edit the album name or description or change the privacy setting as needed.

For your protection, your community requires a moderator to approve all uploaded images before they can be displayed.
Although you can see your uploaded images that are awaiting approval or flagged for review, other community members who view your images can only see the ones that have been approved.

Kudos is a content rating system that lets you vote for the messages you think are the most useful or important.

When you give kudos to a message, you are giving a thumbs-up for good content and a pat on the back to its author. Your kudos help to boost the value of certain messages and enhance the reputation of their authors.

Giving kudos is as easy as a single click, but the impact of kudos ripples across the community.

Want to know who thinks a message is good? It's easy to find out which regular community members and community experts have given kudos to a message. Kudos from community experts can carry more weight than those from brand new members. (Community administrators can choose to have kudos granted by experts carry more weight than kudos granted by regular members.)

To see who's given you kudos:

Go to the message page.

Click the Kudos total.
The Who Kudoed this Message page shows you all the community members who've given kudos to the message.

Click Experts to see kudos given by high-ranking members of the community.
Experts are usually moderators and other users who had a kudos weight of more than 1 when they gave the message kudos.

Click the Date Kudoed, User ID, or or kudos link to sort this page by the date the kudos were given, the name of the user who gave kudos or by the kudos count.

There are usually two kudos leaderboards on the community's front page -- one for authors and another for messages. The author's leaderboard shows who has received the most kudos.
The message leaderboard showcases the most kudoed messages. Links from the front-page leaderboards take you to the full leaderboard pages.

To view the Top Kudoed Messages leaderboard, click view all from the front page module.

To view the Top Kudoed Authors leaderboard, click view all from the front page module.

Your kudos weight is the number of kudos you give each time you click Kudos!.

If you're new to the community, your kudos weight is probably 1 (each kudo counts as 1). More experienced community members might have a higher kudos weight, so they could give two kudos, ten kudos, or more each time they click.

A tag is a single keyword or phrase that describes the topic, theme, or subject of a post.
You can add as many tags as you want and so can other community members.
For example, in a post about a mouse, you might add these tags: mouse, USB mouse, optical mouse, wireless, DPI.

A tag cloud displays tags used frequently within the community or within an area of the community.
The more frequently a tag is used, the larger it appears in the tag cloud.
By looking at a tag cloud, you can get a sense of what the hot topics are in a given area.

Tagging is a way to help other users discover interesting posts. It's also a way to organize content in the community that you think is related.
When you apply tags to a post, you add to the value by providing another way for people to find it.

Some users will tag posts for their own convenience in finding them later. Other users enjoy helping categorize interesting posts for the benefit of the community. Users who tag lots of posts gain status by appearing on Tag Leaderboards.

Private Messenger enables you to send private notes to other community members. Private Messenger has two big advantages over email:

You don't have to know the other member's email address to send the note. (Also, you don't have to reveal yours.)

You can read and send private messages without leaving the community, making it easy to a quick conversation with another community member.

To use the Private Messenger, you must be registered and signed in. You'll see a Private Message icon at the top of your page. If you have any new messages, you'll see the number of unread messages next to the envelope icon.

Your Friends List is a way to create your own community within a community.

Depending on your privacy settings, the people on your Friends List can see your biography, other personal information, or online status.
If you send private messages, you can choose friends from a list instead of typing their user names.

Note: Your Friends List is available only if your community supports private messages.

To add people to your Friends List:

Sign in to the community.

Click the user name of a friend to see the friend's About user name page.

Click Add user name to Friends.

Note: You can remove a person from your Friend's List by clicking "Remove from Friends". Additionally, you can click "Ignore" to prevent specific users from contacting you.

Most users in an online community get along very well. Sometimes, however, you might encounter someone you consider a nuisance.
If you are receiving messages that you'd prefer not to receive, you can add the sender to your Ignored Users list.
The system blocks all messages from users on your Ignored Users list.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: All FICO® Score products made available on myFICO.com include a FICO® Score 8, along with additional FICO® Score versions. Your lender or insurer may use a different FICO® Score than the versions you receive from myFICO, or another type of credit score altogether. Learn more

FICO, myFICO, Score Watch, The score lenders use, and The Score That Matters are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fair Isaac Corporation.
Equifax Credit Report is a trademark of Equifax, Inc. and its affiliated companies.
Many factors affect your FICO Scores and the interest rates you may receive. Fair Isaac is not a credit repair organization as defined under federal or state law, including the Credit Repair Organizations Act. Fair Isaac does not provide "credit repair" services or advice or assistance regarding "rebuilding" or "improving" your credit record, credit history or credit rating.
FTC's website on credit.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: All FICO® Score products made available on myFICO.com include a FICO® Score 8, along with additional FICO® Score versions. Your lender or insurer may use a different FICO® Score than the versions you receive from myFICO, or another type of credit score altogether. Learn more

FICO, myFICO, Score Watch, The score lenders use, and The Score That Matters are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fair Isaac Corporation. Equifax Credit Report is a trademark of Equifax, Inc. and its affiliated companies. Many factors affect your FICO Score and the interest rates you may receive. Fair Isaac is not a credit repair organization as defined under federal or state law, including the Credit Repair Organizations Act. Fair Isaac does not provide "credit repair" services or advice or assistance regarding "rebuilding" or "improving" your credit record, credit history or credit rating. FTC's website on credit.